But a Short Time to Live

Our little hour,—how swift it flies
When poppies flare and lilies smile;
How soon the fleeting minute dies,
Leaving us but a little while
To dream our dream, to sing our song,
To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower,
The Gods—They do not give us long,—
One little hour.

Our little hour,—how short it is
When Love with dew-eyed loveliness
Raises her lips for ours to kiss
And dies within our first caress.
Youth flickers out like wind-blown flame,
Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour,
For Time and Death, relentless, claim
Our little hour.

Our little hour,—how short a time
To wage our wars, to fan our hates,
To take our fill of armoured crime,
To troop our banners, storm the gates.
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red,
Blind in our puny reign of power,
Do we forget how soon is sped
Our little hour?

Our little hour,—how soon it dies:
How short a time to tell our beads,
To chant our feeble Litanies,
To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds.
The altar lights grow pale and dim,
The bells hang silent in the tower—
So passes with the dying hymn
Our little hour.

- Leslie Coulson

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

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Suicide Note

Every night
You wrote another line
With a bloody, broken, bottle
And every day
You wish it away
Why don't you pull the pin
On that grenade
You cuddle

I wanted to believe
Bodies swinging from trees
Struggling to stand
With your head in your hands
A stoic last stand
Of a dying man

I wanted to believe
As I watched your world
Crumble in your hands
I wanted to believe
As you raised your glass
To your last stand
And I wanted to believe
You would win
The war in your head
That I did not understand
That I did not understand

Every night
The questions poured out
Of your wounded eyes
Damn dark things
Every day
You used to pray
Listen to the black raven sing
You wanted to believe
As you were falling to your knees
Struggling to stand
With your life in your hand
The sad last stand
Of a broken man

I wanted to believe
As I watched your world
Crumble in your hands
I wanted to believe
As you raised your glass
To your last stand
And I wanted to believe
You would win
The war in your head
That I did not understand
That I did not understand

I wanted to believe
As I watch your world
Crumble in your hands
I wanted to believe
As you raised your glass
To your last stand
And I wanted to believe
You would win
The war in your head
That I did not understand
That I did not understand

And the questions pour out
And the questions pour out
I did not understand
I did not understand
I did not understand
I did not understand
The sound of you falling
I did not understand
As the trembling heart of a man
Did not understand
The sound of a trembling heart

- Johnette Napolitano

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THE CONQUEROR WORM

Lo ! 't is a gala night
    Within the lonesome latter years —
A mystic throng, bewinged, bedight
    In veils and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre to see
    A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
    The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
    Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly —
    Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast shadowy things
    That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
   Invisible Wo !

That motley drama — oh, be sure
    It shall not be forgot !
With its Phantom chased forevermore,
    By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
    To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness and more of Sin,
    And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,
    A crawling shape intrude !
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
    The scenic solitude !
It writhes ! — it writhes ! — with mortal pangs
    The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
    In human gore imbued !

Out — out are the lights — out all !
    And, over each dying form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
    Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the seraphs, all haggard and wan,
    Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy "Man,"
    Its hero the Conqueror Worm.

- Edgar Allan Poe

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Seven Ages of Man

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,

- William Shakespeare

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If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:

- Rudyard Kipling

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Death, Be Not Proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

- John Donne

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Traveling through the Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only sweving--
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

- William Stafford

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Good-bye my Fancy!

Good-bye my Fancy!
Farewell dear mate,dear love!
I'm going away,I know not where,
Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,
So Good-bye my Fancy.

Now for my last-let me look back a moment;
The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,
Exit, nightfall,and soon the heart-thud stopping.

Long have we lived, joy'd,caress'd together;
Delightful!-now separation-Good-bye my Fancy.

Yet let me not be too hasty,
Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter'd, become really

blended into one;
Then if we die we die together, (yes,we'll remain one,)
If we go anywhere we'll be better off and blither, and learn something,
May-be it is yourself now really ushering me

to the true songs, (who knows?)
May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing,turning

-so now finally,
Good-bye-and hail! my Fancy.

- Walt Whitman